The Fon blog

We are happy to reveal our participation at 4 Years From Now! The event, part of Mobile World Congress, is devoted to innovation in the mobile and digital ecosystem. Fon will be one of the leading players in this edition, with interesting keynotes by our CEO Martin Varsavsky and COO Alex Puregger.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign which ended summer 2014, our latest innovation in WiFi products, Gramofon, has upgraded the home audio experience with the integration of Qualcomm’s AllPlay feature.

Gramofon turns any existing sound system into a wireless music player. By plugging Gramofon into the stereo and connecting it to the Internet via WiFi, Gramofon creates a seamless home audio experience. With Gramofon you can enjoy what you already know and love: your current sound system and your favorite music apps.

Connecting our homes and businesses to the internet will revolutionize the way we engage with technology. As WiFi experts, at Fon we’re excited and ready for this disruption of the industry and will be playing a key role in the near future.

Gigaom is currently hosting a series of conferences to talk about this new era. Last night Alex Puregger, Fon COO, was one of the main speakers at Gigaom’s Structure Connect conference in San Francisco, where he talked about the latest from Fon.

Great news! Last week the Wireless Broadband Alliance, the most important WiFi association, announced the winners of this year’s WBA WiFi Industry Awards. And guess what? The Gramofon was named the Best WiFi Innovation Service!

In words of Caroline Gabriel, one of the judges, the WiFi music player - Gramofon “extends a successful model beyond simple access and into new revenue streams. It integrates music and media experiences more deeply into WiFi everywhere”.

Starting today our partner in Belgium, Belgacom, has a new brand: Proximus. The company is undergoing a full rebranding, from their logo, their website and apps design to product names. The result is a unique brand for fixed, mobile and IT for all their customers. In the words of their CEO, the goal is to “put the customers at the center of everything”.

The coming days are very exciting for Fon! Some of us will be at IFA in Berlin, the global trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances where we will be introducing our latest innovation: Gramofon.

We’re now launching a new flavour of WiFi sharing. Called WiFi for Business, our new solution for retailers offers WiFi in a professional, simple, and affordable way. The service is a plug and play solution that is easy to use, customizable and of course, secure. Business owners can get the service by purchasing the new Fonera for Business via our online shop.

If you're living or travelling to The Netherlands, you'll find lots of Fon Spots there. Wanna know how many? We can count them for you: there are already 250,000 hotspots where you can connect for free if you are a Fon member!

This is the result of the roll out of the WiFi network we’re doing together with KPN, our partner in the country. Starting now, KPN customers get free internet access at thousands of hotspots all over the country and millions worldwide. Of course, at the same time international Fon members are now able to connect for free at all KPN WiFi with Fon hotspots.

Europe is getting more and more Fon WiFi! Now it’s Romania’s turn. Today we’re announcing a new partnership with Romtelecom, the leading telco in the country. Our plan? Not a surprise! To create the largest WiFi network in Romania.

Soon, Romanians and visitors will find lots of Fon Spots in cities such as Bucharest or Timisoara. Of course, Fon sharing members will be able to connect for free. In return, Romtelecom Internet customers with a compatible router, can also become Fon members and roam the world for free in our 13-million hotspot network.

These days are amazing for Brazil. The FIFA World Cup has just begun. Football, friends, excitement ...and WiFi! Did you know there are now more than 600,000 Oi - Fon Spots to connect all around the country? Oi-Fon is the largest WiFi network in Latin America!!

Fon is not only the world's largest wifi network, it's an exceptional technology company building unique products and working on diverse technical and commercial challenges. Fon is always looking for top talent and at the moment we are prioritizing technical profiles to fill some crucial roles on the Engineering team. In high demand: DBA with MySQL experience who is interested in messing around with new database technologies (NoSQL, MongoDB, Redis) and Software Architects with experience in SOA. Interested?

Traveling to Korea? Fon’s got you covered! We’re happy to announce today that we’ve just signed a WiFi agreement with KT, the leading South Korean telco.

Starting today, Fon members who visit the country will gain free access to KT’s WiFi network, including popular hotels, restaurants, bookstores and cafes throughout South Korea. Go there and look for the Fon WiFi signal. You will see that the coverage is amazing! In return, select KT customers will also get free access to our 13-million hotspot network!

Fon just doesn't stop these days! After our success with Gramofon on Kickstarter we're now even happier because, at the same time, our hotspot network continues to expand. From early 2015 Fon WiFi coverage is going to arrive in a new continent!

We'd like to give a huge thanks to everyone for their support, especially to our backers, who as of now make up more than 4,800 people around the world.

Our Kickstarter campaign has come to an end and we can proudly say that Gramofon is a reality. Our revolutionary Social WiFi + Social Music product innovation went beyond our funding goal, reaching $300,000 in only 30 days. This means it will be manufactured for sure!

We are thrilled to announce Gramofon, a new product from our team here at Fon. We have been working on Gramofon for almost two years, and it is with great pleasure that we unveil the product on the popular crowdfunding site, Kickstarter. We are on Kickstarter because we want to get Gramofon into the hands of the type of people that made Fon happen in the first place—and we want to get it to them first.

Say hello to Fon's newest partner on the Island of Jersey! Starting today JT is our telco partner, and we're really happy about this new agreement. Jersey is a beautiful island and as a popular travel destination, we see lots of benefits for both current Fon members and JT members when abroad!

Fon is finally arriving to the Netherlands! The first step to cover the country with Fon Spots will start on April 2nd. That day a pilot of the service will begin in Amsterdam Ijburg where all the compatible KPN modems will be activated as KPN WiFi with Fon hotspots!

Around 900 customers are going to be part of this initial project. It will last 6-8 weeks during which we will keep track of the usage and the user experience. We want to be sure everything is all right!

Our goal is to blanket the whole globe with WiFi. We're getting closer and closer to accomplishing this mission in Europe! Let's welcome our new partner in Greece, OTE!

Thanks to this partnership with the leading greek telco, OTE customers will get access to more than 12 million hotspots abroad and Fon members will be able to connect to hundreds and hundreds of hotspots that are going to be available around the country very soon.

Last year we grew 50%, our network stands at over 12 million hotspots and there are more than 1,000 cities around the world with almost ubiquitous Fon WiFi coverage. But that’s just the beginning! We’re happy to announce that our growth will now be unstoppable since we have just closed a $14 million round!